


Something in the Night

by abluta



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-09 08:46:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abluta/pseuds/abluta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he was taken prisoner, Bucky's life was split into three parts: before, during, and after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Before - Nothing Special

**Author's Note:**

> Will be updated every week or two. 
> 
> Although I don't use specific warnings, I will say there are some pretty dark themes in this and future chapters. 
> 
> Title comes from a Bruce Springsteen song (sorry, Bucky).

* * *

They sat on the fire escape of the widow Kozlowski's fifth floor apartment with their legs dangling through the railings. Kozlowski was old and her knees ground together like sandpaper on ice, so she'd give Bucky a dime to buy her groceries and carry them up to the apartment. Last time he'd come by, she told him they should come watch the fireworks over the East River on the Fourth of July. She made them cookies shaped like rockets with red white and blue icing, and the first thing Bucky did when she was back inside the apartment was pretend to fellate one of them. Steve laughed like he understood what the joke was, and he looked out toward the bridge.

"I brought something to go with the cookies. Y'know. For your birthday." Bucky pulled his rucksack over. It clanked against the wood boards of the fire escape. "Dad came back two days ago, and his refrigerator is already full." Bucky scrunched his nose as he pulled out one of the beer bottles. He hated that refrigerator. It looked looked like a diamond in a garbage dump in their apartment, but his father had brought it home as a gift for his mother one of the other times he'd come back, and she screamed and laughed and kissed him, and when he disappeared a few days later she locked herself in her room and cried. He offered the bottle to Steve. "You want one?"

Steve watched Bucky pop off the cap and hand him the bottle. "Isn't he going to be mad when he finds out they're missing."

"I'll just tell him he blacked out and forgot he drank it all." Bucky opened a bottle for himself. He took a swig and wiped off his mouth with his sleeve. "Hey, look." He pointed out over the river where the first firework whizzed up into the sky and exploded into blue and red sparks.

Steve drank--more slowly than Bucky--as another firework exploded, and then another, until the sky was as bright as day. "It's strange, isn't it?"

"What's-- Oh, man, that was a big one! What's strange?"

"It's like an air strike. We make it look like bombs are going off to celebrate our independence."

Bucky screwed up his face at Steve. "You're thinking about it too much. It's just that it looks good. They do it on New Years too; unless we're bombing the old year."

"Or the new one," Steve said with a smirk.

Bucky rolled his eyes. "I don't care what it means. Fireworks are swell."

They sat in silence for a while. Bucky swung his legs in the cooling summer night air. There was music coming from a club half a block down the road, soft horns and a woman's voice singing a song that sounded familiar, but neither of them knew the words and Bucky ended up just humming along.

"Did you talk to Daisy?" Steve asked, quietly.

Bucky looked over at him. Something in his gut flopped strangely, and he reached in his bag for a second bottle. "We did a little talking."

Steve sighed through his nose, and his lips were small and tight the way they got sometimes. Like when he was about to fight somebody. "And what else?"

"I did ask. Y'know. If she liked you. I told her she should, 'cause you're nice."

"'Cause I'm nice," Steve echoed. He stood up and leaned on the railing, looking down at the street below.

Bucky shifted his weight around, suddenly uncomfortable. "An' I'm not so nice."

Steve didn't say anything. Bucky watched him extend his arm over the edge of the railing and drop it to crash below. No one was down there, Steve had made sure of that. Of course he had.

"That help?" Bucky asked, cocking his head to look up at Steve.

Steve shrugged. "Not really."

"Daisy's not so great. Maybe an older broad, like Vanessa. She's sixteen, and I hear she fools around with any guy who'll stand still long enough."

"If Daisy's not so great, then why did you... What did you do with her?"

Bucky sighed and pulled himself up the railing to stand next to Steve. He wanted to be standing if the conversation was going to get serious. He had to hold on tight, though. A beer and a half was enough to make the floor come up on him. "She kissed me, actually. I guess I let her a while, but then I stopped her. I said, Steve's my friend, and you've got him dizzy. She's not worth it, though. The girl who'll dizzy for _you_? She'll be worth it."

Steve frowned out at nothing, but Bucky could tell he wasn't as mad anymore--just thinking on something. Bucky waited to see if he'd actually say it or not, and this time, he did. "How many girls have you kissed, Bucky?"

"Uhhh. Maybe about five, I think."

"And not one girl wants to kiss me. How can you understand what it's like? Y'know, you chase all kinds of girls, and I just wanted to chase one, and she goes and kisses you."

Bucky rolled his eyes. "Oh man, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Kissing isn't anything special."

"That's easy for you to say."

"Yeah?" Bucky grabbed Steve's shoulder and roughly turned him to face him. He didn't really have a plan in mind; he just leaned down and kissed Steve. It lasted maybe a second or two, but when Bucky pulled back, he was doing his best not to seem out of breath. "See?" He swallowed thickly. "Nothing special."

Steve stared up at him, his brow furrowed slightly. "What was that for?"

"To prove a point." Bucky folded his arms and leaned on the railing, staring out toward the river even though the fireworks had stopped. His heart was beating hard, and he felt like he might throw up. Maybe he should've had a few more cookies before drinking.

"That makes you my first kiss." Steve sat heavily on the fire escape stairs. "I hate your guts."

"I'm your--" Bucky's voice caught, and he had to clear his throat. "I'm your only friend."

"Don't mean I don't hate you."

Bucky sniffed. "Hey, if I don't get home soon, my mom's gonna have dad beat my ass." He paused for a moment. "Wanna go down and look at the dames shopping in the fancy department stores 'til they close up for the night?"

Steve laughed and shook his head. "Sure."

* * *

In the spring, Steve was always sick. Some days there was something in the air, and when Bucky stopped by his place to pick him up, he found him blown up like a red balloon, eyes and nose running. Bucky skipped his share of school to sit with Steve and listen to him blow his nose and gasp into his nebulizer when the hay fever would set off his asthma, and he'd talk when Steve's throat was too closed up to talk much. After school let out, the other boys would be outside, hooting at girls or playing baseball, but Bucky would stay in talking with Steve.

Days when Steve could go to school, Bucky went with him. Steve was good at school, and Bucky was good at copying off of him, and when that failed, his sad eyes swayed the hearts of most of the school teachers. The last resort was talking back and acting up until he was sent out to talk to the principal.

He usually hit that last resort about five minutes into math class.

He was sitting in the back with Steve, leaned back in his chair while the teacher talked them through quadratic equations. He wasn't even looking at his slate, and Steve kept shifting back and forth nervously until he finally leaned forward to whisper, "Hey, you should come over after school. I'll help you with this."

Bucky pursed his lips and shook his head, glaring forward. "Gotta get home. Mom needs me to look after the baby."

"Well... Well, on the way here in the morning. It's not as bad as it looks."

Bucky shrugged. "Who cares? I'll just--"

"James," the teacher, Mrs. Henderson, interrupted, stopping her lesson to cross her arms at them. "Did you have something to add?"

"No, _ma'am_."

"All right, then." She turned back to the chalkboard. "Steve, you need to look out for your friend."

The biggest boy in class, Marvin Peter, sneered over at them and snorted loudly.

Steve didn't have time to try to stop him. Bucky was on his feet, his chair clattering on the floor behind him. "You got something to say, Marv? You got something to say?"

Marvin snorted again. "You better look after your friend, _Steeeve_."

Bucky shot out over his desk, and he was on Marvin, clocking him a splitting his lip before Marvin knew what hit him. Around them, Bucky could hear the commotion, could hear Mrs. Henderson shouting something, then the shouts of the other kids drowning her out. He could feel something on his arm, but he was too busy swerving away from Marvin's punch..

He heard a crack of a fist connecting with someone's face, and it took him a moment to realize it wasn't his. It took him a moment to see that Steve was stumbling back, blood dripping from his nose onto his lip. Steve had tried to stop the fight, and Marvin had hurt him. Steve was hurt, and Bucky's heart was beating in his ears.

Bucky didn't remember shoving Marvin to the ground, and he didn't remember the next few punches he landed as Marvin laid on the ground bawling for someone to help him. He only barely stopped himself from flattening out the teacher from the classroom next door who was pulling him away from the fight. 

The teacher had turned him around and was saying something to him. Marvin was being led out into the hallway. The other kids were groaning with disappointment that the fight was over. And Steve.

Steve was on the ground, gasping for breath.

"Let go! LEGGO," Bucky shouted, and he freed himself from the teacher to run over to Steve. "You havin' an attack?"

Steve nodded, still gasping shallowly.

" _Now?_ "

Steve glared at him. "Didn't. Plan it."

"Young man," Mrs. Henderson said, standing over the two of them. "You need to report to the--"

"Sorry for interrupting, ma'am, but can I get in trouble tomorrow?" Bucky's words were running together in a panic. "I gotta get Steve home."

Mrs. Henderson suddenly seemed to notice Steve. "Are you okay?"

Steve shook his head. "Home. N-- Nebu..."

"He's got a nebulizer at home." Bucky lifted Steve to his feet. "Sorry, Mrs. Henderson. Sorry for fighting in your classroom. I'll clean the whole room and all the chalkboards for a month; just let me get Steve home."

She looked between the two of them helplessly. Her face was almost as flushed as Steve's. "Well... Well, all right then."

"Thanks, Mrs. Henderson!" Bucky was already halfway out of the classroom with Steve. They passed Marvin in the hall, his forehead bleeding from the ring Bucky wore over his right middle knuckle, and went straight on to the front doors. Bucky dragged Steve over to his bicycle. He pulled him up on the front part of the seat, and sat behind him, lifting himself up to put extra weight on the pedals and get them going.

Steve slumped forward on the handlebars, his breaths getting shallower and shallower. Bucky kept muttering "stick with me, stick with me, come on" all the way to the Rogers' apartment. When they were there, he left his bike in the street and carried Steve up the stairs, his arm under Steve's armpits. Bucky's hands were shaking as he got the nebulizer out. He knew by now how to get the medicine in it, and get it on Steve. He watched with huge eyes, holding the mouthpiece to Steve's face. Gradually, Steve's breathing calmed, and he batted away Bucky's hand so he could hold the mouthpiece himself.

They sat like that for a long time. The only sound was Steve's weezing and the gears of the old clock on the hallway click-clacking the passing of each second. Finally, the latch on the front door snapped open and Mrs. Rogers. She walked straight over to Steve and pressed her wrist against his forehead, then checked his pulse.

"Your teacher called me at work." She glanced over at Bucky, but Bucky couldn't look her in the face. "Were there any chest pains with it?"

Steve shook his head.

She grabbed his chin and turned his head one way, then the other. "You're pale. You'll stay home from school tomorrow. Like I told you to do today."

He pulled the mouthpiece away long enough to croak out, "Sorry, ma'am."

"It was my fault," Bucky blurted out.

Both mother and son turned their head to look at him with the same dubious expression.

"I picked a fight in class, and he tried to stop me."

Mrs. Rogers lifted an eyebrow at Steve. "You tried to _stop_ a fight?"

Steve shrugged sheepishly.

"And _you_ think that caused his attack," she asked Bucky.

Bucky nodded and mumbled, "Yes, ma'am."

"Well, it might have, but it was probably his hayfever. It always acts up after a rain like we had the other day. Steve, are you feeling well enough to go wash up?"

Steve nodded and got up to go to the bathroom. Mrs. Rogers sighed and went to the couch. She patted the cushion next to her, and Bucky reluctantly went to sit with her.

"Do you remember when Steve got rheumatic fever?" 

Bucky furrowed his brow. "Yeah, I remember that..."

"You came by everyday with those sketches you two would draw each other, and one day you had the same look on your face that you have today, and you asked me if Steve was going to die."

"And you said he might."

"I also said I didn't think he would, because he's strong. But the difference between me and you is, I knew him before he knew you, and he wasn't half as strong back then."

Bucky blinked up at her, and she grinned the way Steve would grin at him, like being a Rogers meant you knew something nobody else did.

"But don't think that means you ought to pick any more fights in class, young man."

Bucky's cheeks burned, but he was smiling. "Yes, ma'am. Not in class."

She laughed. "Well, it's a start. I w--"

Mrs. Rogers was interrupted by a loud knocking at the door. Bucky's heart sank. "What time is it?"

"About fourty-five past."

"That's my mom. I was supposed to be home straight after school. I didn't know it's so late."

"I'll let her know what happened," she said, getting to her feet to answer the door.

Bucky hurried after her. "It's not going to help."

She opened the door, and Bucky's mother eyed her, then down at Bucky. His baby sister was crying in her arms. "Should've known you'd be hiding out here."

"Mrs. Barnes, he wasn't hiding. Steve had a--"

"Lookit, Sarah, I don't care how you see fit to raise your boy, and I don't mind my boy being over here--keeps him out of my hair back home--but he _will_ be home when he's told to be. I don't care what the excuse is." She grabbed past Mrs. Rogers and pulled Bucky out into the hall. "Do you know how upset your father is? He's got to be gone on business soon, and this is our one night out all week."

"I don't care how upset he is," Bucky spat.

He'd hardly finished speaking when she slapped him in the face. "Your father is making an effort here, and if you were so _selfish_ \--"

"He's making an effort for that," Bucky nodded to the baby, which was screaming now. "Not you and me. Never bothered making an effort when it was just you and me."

She grabbed his ear with her free hand and twisted it hard.

"Mrs. Barnes, please." Mrs. Roger's voice was still calm, but Bucky could detect a hint of anger behind it. "Bucky is your son, but you're at my home, and I don't let anyone harm my guests."

Bucky's mom glared at Mrs. Rogers, and Bucky was scared when she let go of his ear that she might slap Mrs. Rogers too. She didn't though. She just took a step back, then turned away to walk away. "Come on, Bucky."

Bucky looked back toward Mrs. Rogers. Her face was expressionless, but he could see her jaw was clenched. There wasn't any choice for either of them. He hurried after his mother before she got too far ahead of him.

* * *

Bucky spent most of the summer of '34 at the Rogers' house, sitting with Steve in his room with the window closed even when it was so hot they had to sit around in their undershirts and shorts, fanning themselves off with yesterday's newspaper. It was one of those kind of afternoons when they were sitting on the floor leaning against the side of Steve's bed playing cards that Bucky said, as if it was nothing, "You remember Vanessa?"

"Vanessa Porter? Yeah. Isn't she engaged now?"

"Yeah..." Bucky frowned at his cards, then tossed them on the floor. "This is boring."

Steve rolled his eyes. "You always think it's boring when you're losing."

"It's too hot. I can't think." He tugged at his undershirt, trying to force a breeze down his chest, but the breeze was hot too.

"Why'd you mention Vanessa?"

"Huh?"

"Vanessa. You just brought her up. I figured it was for a reason."

Bucky ran his hand through his hair. It was damp with sweat. "Oh, uh. I saw her the other day."

"When you went on that date?"

"Yeah... Me and that dame didn't get along too good. And I ran into Vanessa."

Steve was gathering up the cards. He started to shuffle them restlessly.

"She's living in this apartment with another broad after she graduated. Until she, y'know." He swallowed. "Gets married."

"Uh-huh..."

"I kinda stayed the night there."

Steve paused his shuffling and looked at Bucky. "With her?"

"What do you think?"

"I mean. _With_ her?"

"Yeah, _with_ her. Jesus, Steve. What do you think I'm trying to say? I... we... y'know." He gestured vaguely.

"The Vanessa who's engaged."

Bucky sighed in frustration and pushed himself up to his feet to look out the window. There wasn't much of a view; just the side of another building and another window. The one on the other building was open, though.

He could hear Steve shuffle the deck a few more times, then set them down on his upturned crate he used as a bedside table. "You all right?"

"Yeah, I mean. I'm great. It was great. Chasin' skirts all this time; I finally caught one. That's the point, isn't it?"

"I bet her fiance thinks he 'caught one' too."

Bucky snapped around. "Could you quit it with the guilt? So, the first girl I, y'know, slept with is getting married in three weeks. I'm scum. You knew that."

"I don't think you're scum." Steve was sitting on the bed now, gripping the edge of it. "So... What was it like?"

"It was-- I said it was great." Bucky shrugged, then went over and sat by Steve on the bed. "Kinda... different than I thought it was gonna be. You just go until it feels really good, and then you stop. And you're kind of lying there after, wondering who's going to say something first. And, uh, there's this smell you get on your hands and, y'know. Other places. And you can't get it off you for a while."

Steve watched him for a while after he'd finished talking, like he was expecting more. "That doesn't sound great."

"It _felt_ great. What would you know? You haven't even kissed a girl yet."

Steve frowned and looked away. He was still gripping the edge of the matress, and his feet didn't touch the ground, but they weren't swaying at all.

"Sorry," Bucky muttered.

"What're you going to do now?"

Bucky blinked. "What do you mean?"

"Are you going to talk to her again? Are you going to tell her fiance? Are you going to fight for her, or do you plan on carrying on behind his back up until they get married? Or I guess even after they get married."

"No! I'm not doing any of that. I hope I never see her again. That'd be so..." He shuddered.

"She's the first one, and you never want to see her again?"

Bucky clenched his jaw. "I should've known better than to tell you. I should've known better than to think you'd get it."

Patiently, Steve asked, "What am I not getting?"

"I don't want to marry this broad. I don't want to marry anybody for... for a _while_. I don't wanna be like everybody's mom and pop who got married when they were seventeen and they hate each other now. I just wanna have fun." Bucky huffed out a breath. He didn't know what he was saying anymore. He just hoped it sounded like he was more sure about all of this than he felt.

Steve was quiet for a while. There was a siren somewhere, deep in the city. "All right," he said.

Bucky blinked over at him. "All right?"

"Yeah." Steve shrugged. "If that's what you want, I'm glad you got it."

Bucky nodded slowly. He wasn't sure he believed Steve, but he didn't want to fight about it anymore. Downstairs, Mrs. Rogers was coming home from work. It'd be dinnertime soon.


	2. Before (Over There)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky goes overseas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to repeat that there are some dark themes, and they're going to get darker each chapter at this point.

* * *

The Rogers apartment was empty in the summer of '36. After Mrs. Rogers got sick, Bucky had helped Steve pack everything up that they could fit in boxes, so they could keep the place as sterile as possible for when she came home from quarantine.

She never did come home, though, and Steve never got her things back out of the boxes. It was all stacked neatly behind the door of her old room, which neither of them ever opened.

Bucky moved in sometime after Steve's birthday, and he slept on the couch with all his things still in suitcases under the pretense that he hadn't _actually_ moved in, not really. He looked out for Steve, had his back in any fights he wouldn't be able to walk away from on his own, and made sure Steve ate as much as he was supposed to, even on the bad days when Steve seemed so mad at the whole world that Bucky was afraid he might just up and leave it, one way or another.

Sometimes, Bucky woke up in the middle of the night and found Steve sitting on the floor next to the couch, with his head on the cushion next to his own. He'd move forward a little, so his forehead pressed against Steve's hair, and he'd pray that everything would end up okay.

Then, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

* * *

It was a couple of hours before sunrise, and the blonde he'd taken home from the World Exposition of Tomorrow was sitting on the edge of the bed smoking a cigarette. Bucky was propped up against the headboard, trying not to think about dying in a foxhole somewhere in Germany.

"Are you scared?" she asked.

He looked over at her, then slowly smirked. "Scared of what?"

She crawled back up the bed to him, and put her cigarette between his lips before resting her head on his shoulder.

"It's bad for us too, y'know?" She ran her fingernails in lazy spirals over his chest. "Helpless and waiting. Hoping our men over there will save us. Hoping they won't catch a disease from some dirty French girl."

He took a drag of her cigarette and blew it out slowly, watching the smoke rise to the ceiling and disperse. "You should've gone home with that friend I brought tonight, if you didn't want to sleep with a dead man."

She lifted her head to look at him, then took her cigarette back. "Molly wouldn't have gone to bed with you. She told me." She shrugged, and blew out smoke through her nose. "You're going off to be a hero. I thought you deserved a night with an American girl. I've heard those European girls are just covered in hair.from head to toe. Your friend... Well, he's not a hero."

Bucky snorted and sat up, away from her. "You don't know what you're talking about, Sister." He reached down for his underwear and started to pull them on.

"You sure you don't want to go one more time before you leave?"

He pressed his tongue against the edge of his teeth and chuckled, and he kicked his underwear back to the ground.

She fell asleep two, maybe three minutes after they finished up, and he left her there to walk out into the darkness before dawn. He thought about finding Steve, so they could say goodbye again. He even thought about going home to say goodbye to his mother and little sister. Instead, he walked until the sun came up and it was time to go to England.

* * *

There was beer at the camp. The 107th had been walking five days straight, getting rained on half the time, but there was beer at the camp under a big tent that kept most of the rain out, and that was all that mattered. At some point during the evening, about ten guys had started up a wrestling tournament in the middle of everything, and there was a lot of laughing and smoking and singing, and Bucky sat off to the side playing solitaire with a deck of cards that was missing the four of spades and the queen of diamonds. That's when he met Slim.

He'd seen the guy around. He'd seen lots of guys around, but he wasn't all that interested in making friends. It was just that Slim hobbled over to him on his blistered feet and said, "D'you mind if I sit here?"

Bucky looked up from his cards, looked the guy up and down, then shrugged.

He'd half expected the guy to back off after that, when he looked at them like he was the kind of guy who might beat the snot out of them for no reason other than boredom, but he didn't. He sat, and he watched Bucky play for a while.

"My name's Leonard, by the way. Leonard Travis. People call me Slim, though."

"James," he said. "People call me Bucky."

He grinned widely. "Nice to meet you, Bucky." There was a loud shout over by the wrestlers, and Slim looked out toward them, trying to figure out what had happened. He didn't look away from the fighters when he asked, "What're you doing all the way over here by yourself?"

"Maybe I didn't want company."

"Maybe. You could've gone to your tent if that was the case, though."

Bucky chuckled. "Yeah, I guess I could've."

"Where you from?"

"Brooklyn." Bucky focused down on his cards. He needed a black four.

"Oh, New York, huh? I'm from Michigan. Kalamazoo, originally, but I don't expect you've heard of that."

"Not even a little bit."

"You miss Brooklyn?"

Bucky gathered up the cards to shuffle them and start over. "Yeah, I miss Brooklyn."

"You want to play some poker, maybe?" Bucky looked at Slim. His eyes were bright and hazel, but he had dark circles under them, and his cheeks were drawn in. He was probably handsome when he'd had enough food and sleep. "Y'know. For a change of pace?"

Bucky shuffled the cards again and tapped them on the table to straighten them. “Sure.”

They played for a while, not saying much except what they needed to for the game. Slim kept looking over at the wrestlers on and off, not so much like he was interested, but more like a wary cat. They were on the fourth hand when Slim asked, "You got a girl back home in Brooklyn?"

Bucky frowned at his cards, and pointlessly rearranged them. He'd been asked that question a few times, by people trying to make conversation with him, looking for an excuse to talk about whoever it was they were missing. To show him a creased picture of some smiling girl who probably already moved on. He didn't have any pictures like that. He almost wished he'd brought one, just to play along, just so he didn't have to think too much about what he really was missing.

"I don't," Slim said, when Bucky didn't answer. "Y'know, have a girl. 'Course, I don't miss home that much either. Signed up just to get away from there."

"That bad?"

Slim nodded. He set down a couple of cards from his hand and replaced them with two new ones. Bucky caught sight of a couple of burlier guys watching them over Slim's shoulder. They were saying something to each other, and it didn't seem friendly.

"I don't miss most things back home either,” Bucky said. “Just. Knowing all the streets. Knowing what to expect everyday, even if it wasn't good. Little things that never seemed to matter. I miss that. Y'know what I mean?"

Slim grinned at him, and his eyes were bright again. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

After that, they played poker together every night they were able. No real stakes. Maybe a cigarette here and there. Within a few weeks, Slim had added three more people to their poker games. All three of them had girls back home and creased pictures of them in their pockets. They'd talk about it sometimes, and Bucky and Slim would just grin at each other.

* * *

Bucky and Slim were in a foxhole sharing a can of chopped ham and eggs when the shooting started. 

Slim was still scrambling to get his rifle when a few feet ahead of them, a guy they played poker with named Michael was hit right through his throat. Bucky was crouched just high enough to see Michael squirming on the ground next to the mortar.

“We gotta get to the mortar, Slim,” Bucky said breathlessly. Slim didn’t answer, and a surge of fear went through Bucky. Had he been hit too? He wasn’t, though. He was still down in the mud gripping his rifle, shaking and staring forward at nothing. He grabbed Slim’s shoulder. “Snap out of it, Soldier. Come on. Mike’s down.”

Slim didn’t move. Didn’t even look up at him. Bucky glanced back over the edge of the foxhole. Michael wasn’t squirming anymore. “All right, stay here, Slim. I’ll come back for you.”

He scrambled out of the foxhole. He kept as low to the ground as he could as he ran through the bullets toward the mortar. He could hear someone screaming behind him, but it wasn’t Slim. As long as it wasn’t Slim. He got to the mortar, found the shells sitting untouched in their case, and stuffed one in. It shot up into the air, landing somewhere near where the gunfire was coming from. There was a gurgling sound coming from the hole in Michael’s throat, but by the time Bucky was firing the second shell, the sound was gone. He looked over his shoulder. Slim had finally come up to shoot, even though he was still shaking. He was brave like that. The guys that got scared were the bravest ones. Bucky always figured he was more stupid than brave himself. But Slim was up and shooting and trying to stop shaking.

That’s when another shell hit, right by Slim. The dirt flew up everywhere, and when it cleared, Bucky couldn’t see Slim anymore. He ran back to the foxhole, not even trying to stay low, and jumped down next to Slim. He was on the ground, covered in dirt. His face was flecked with cuts. He wasn’t opening his eyes.

“Medic!” Bucky shouted. No one was coming. There was blood in Slim’s dishwater blond hair.

Bucky gathered Slim up, carrying him over his shoulder, and he ran. He ran Slim back to where he would be safe, and someone would make him better.

That night, after the battle was over, Bucky fell asleep in a chair next to Slim's cot in the hospital ward and he dreamt of riding his bike through the streets of Brooklyn on his way to the Rogers' apartment.

* * *

It was a raining when the mail came, the first day Bucky got any mail from back home. He'd expected to get a letter from Steve by now, but the letter that came was from his mother. He read it a few times, then he went to check in on Slim.

The worst of his injuries had been a concussion; he'd banged his head on a rock when the blast knocked him back. He didn't need nurses anymore, but he had a few days left before he had to go back to doing chores around the camp. He'd stay in his tent most of the day, too embarrassed to show his face among the others. He couldn't have helped Michael any more than Bucky did, Bucky could see the guilt all over his face every time he'd look in on him to see how he was doing.

Slim was sitting on his cot reading, like he usually was whenever he had a spare minute. He looked up when Bucky poked his head under the tent flap. He even smiled a little.

"Mind if I sit with you for a while?"

Slim scooted over on his cot a little so Bucky would have room to sit next to him, and Bucky did. He'd almost forgot the envelope wilting in his hand from the rain and sweat on his palms.

"You got some mail?" Slim asked. His name was never called when the bags came in either, and there was a note of jealousy in his voice.

Bucky tried to flatten out the envelop on his thigh. His name written in his mother's hand was beginning to bleed away from the paper. "Yeah. My dad's dead."

Slim stared at him for a long moment, like he thought he'd misheard, or Bucky was making one of his jokes that was more angry than funny. 

Bucky just half grinned at him and shrugged. "See, he bought my mom a refrigerator when I was, uh. Eleven or twelve, I guess. He'd get a lot of money sometimes--never told us where it came from--and he'd buy Mom expensive things like that to make up for not being around much." His hair kept falling on his forehead, and he pushed it back. "Bought her a ring that got her held up one time. She got real mad at me for not fighting the thief off so she could keep that damn ring... Anyway, refrigerator stopped working a while ago. Guess he finally got around to carrying it downstairs for the trash men, and he fell. Cracked his head wide open."

"I'm sorry, Bucky," Slim said, quietly.

"I'm not." He looked over at Slim. "That make me a monster, you think?"

Slim furrowed his brow. "No. No, I don't think anything could make you a monster."

"I don't know about that." Bucky smiled unhappily. "More 'n anything, I'm mad 'cause this letter's from my mom and not... I got this friend back home, too sickly for them to let him in the army, though God knows he tried. We've been friends since we were kids, and I always looked out for him. I haven't got a letter from him. Thought he'd 've sent me a letter. And I can't stop thinking that maybe something happened to him. He's got a real bad case of asthma, and catches every bug you can think up. Only, I was always there for him before. And if I wasn't, his mom was. She died of TB a few years back, and I'm over here, and there's nobody looking out for him."

Bucky didn't realize he was crying until he felt a tear hit his arm. He looked down at it for a moment, then whispered "shit" under his breath and looked away from Slim to scrub his face dry.

"If you weren't here, I'd probably be dead right now. It can't be your responsiblity to save the _whole_ world."

Bucky laughed, a little manically. "Why not?"

"You've got to leave a little of the saving for the rest of us." Slim elbowed him affectionately. "Anyway, your friend will write you. And he's lucky. Really lucky."

Bucky looked at him dubiously.

"He is. I never had anybody looking out for me back home. I never had that 'til now."

They were both quiet. The sounds of the others outside of the tent seemed distant, like they were coming from a news reel. 

"When you were bleeding in that foxhole," Bucky muttered, "I was scared."

Slim nodded, watching him. "I know you were."

"You can't get hurt like that again. You got to promise me."

"You know I can't promise you that out here."

"You _got_ to."

"Okay," Slim said quietly. "I promise."

Bucky leaned over and kissed him, and before he knew it, Slim was kissing him back.

* * *

Slim was hit in the shoulder, sitting in the mud and bleeding through his uniform when HYDRA captured them. That didn't keep them from putting him to work, though. Bucky had ripped off the cleanest part of any fabric he could find to keep the wound bandaged and clean.

It kept looking worse every time they came back to the cell, though.

"It's starting to look better," Bucky lied. The edges were turning black, and middle of it was seeping blood and puss all the time. He used half of the drinking water they'd given him to clean it as well as he could. "How's your hand?" 

Slim's fingers twitched a little. Bucky was pretty sure he was trying to make a fist. "Doesn't hurt as much anymore."

The others were watching them out of the corners of their eyes, pretending to look out at something else. Dugan and Gabe were talking quietly. Bucky heard them say something about "not gonna make it" and he pretended he didn't hear them and didn't know who they were talking about.

"You know that friend of mine? Steve?" Bucky said. Slim hardly winced at the pain anymore when Bucky was cleaning his wound. He nodded slowly. "One time me and him were walking home from school and these older kids were bothering this girl our age." He began to wrap up Slim's shoulder again with what used to be a pant leg. "Steve, he could never just walk past something like that. Picked a fight with them, so they'd be distracted and she could get away. It was like a terrier fighting a pack of pit bulls. We ended up flat on our asses, the two of us. Something set us off, and we started laughing. These boys thought they must've knocked something loose in us. Made us crazy. So they leave us to it, and we get up and go home, our faces look like hamburger meat. His mom takes one look at us and tells us she hopes it was worth it. And Steve says 'yes, ma'am it was' and his mom, she shakes her head and starts tending to us. She was a nurse, you know. Did I tell you that?"

"Yeah, you told me," Slim murmured, half asleep.

"She's the one who taught me how to take care of stuff like this, tending wounds and everything, and she was a good lady. When we get out of this, I'm going to have you meet Steve and let him know his mother's the reason you got out of this."

Slim opened his eyes, and suddenly he seemed more awake and clear-headed than he had in days. "Bucky. I don't know if I'm going to get to keep my promise."

Bucky clenches his jaw and swallows, and he ties the bandage tight. "You're gonna be fine. You're just a little hurt right now, that's all. Don't act like it's the end of the world."

"Yeah." Slim smiled and leaned his head back against the cell bars. The shadows of the guards above them slided across his face as they patrolled the area. "Didn't mean to be dramatic."

"Yeah, well. You're entitled, now and then." Bucky turned and sat next to him. After a while, Slim's head lolled over to rest on his shoulder, and he was snoring softly. Bucky sat awake, staring out at nothing. Gabe and Dugan weren't talking anymore. Somewhere far away, Bucky was sure he could hear screaming, or maybe it was just in his head.

It was a few days later that Slim started having the seizures. First one was in the factory. He just fell out of line and the guards ignored him until it was time to take them back to the cells. They let Bucky carry him. 

He had another seizure that night, and two more in the morning. They didn't make him work anymore after that. Just left him in the cell by himself, curled up on the ground or leaned against the bars. He was never entirely awake anymore. Sometimes his eyes would be opened, and Bucky would talk to him, tell him stories about Brooklyn, but he never said anything back.

Then, finally, Bucky came back from the factory, and Slim was curled up and his skin was gray, making his dishwater blond hair seem bright against it, and there was a rat chewing on one of his fingers. The guards didn't take the body away until morning.


	3. During - Dr. Zola

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky gets pneumonia and is taken out of the general population.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter includes torture and rape. The torture is somewhat graphic, the rape isn't but it is still potentially triggery.

* * *

Before they were captured, back when they were still at camp, Bucky made up one of the corners of a storage tent no one went into very often with a tarp so, if someone did look in, they wouldn't see anything. He took Slim there, and they kissed for the second time. And the third. And the fourth. Slim kept smiling against his mouth, even when he was telling him about how one of the guys back in Kalamazoo had found out Slim liked him, and the guy got some of his friends together and beat Slim so bad he had to go to the hospital. He told him how he told his dad that he didn't like girls, and his dad had disowned him. He told him about lying about liking girls when he signed up. He told him he only ever felt safe with Bucky, and how crazy was it that this was the only place he'd ever felt safe. Bucky held him hard, Slim on top of him, Bucky's head against his chest. Slim had these long, thin fingers and they unfastened their pants, and Slim had his hand around both their cocks, and Bucky breathed hot against Slim's throat.

Gabe tried to talk to Bucky after Slim died. He sat next to him and said Slim probably didn't feel much after the first seizure. He probably hadn't been is as much pain as it seemed. Bucky just looked at him, and the look on his face must've been mean, because Gabe didn't try to talk to him again after that. Nobody did. There was always an empty halo around Bucky, an invisible barrier he didn't let anyone cross except the guards. Not even when the cough started that kept him up through the night and left him gasping for breath. Even when every cough started coming with a spray of blood, and he was shaking with fever. It wasn't any of his own people who took care of him, it was HYDRA.

He was coughing so hard one morning that he couldn't even stand up to go to the factory, so the guards dragged him to his feet. They took him upstairs, through a long, dimly-lit hallway. There were windows somewhere above him. He could've seen the sky if he'd turned his head, but he didn't. He didn't see the point.

Most of the doors in the hall were empty, except one. He could hear someone muttering in English; name, rank, serial number. He could see someone strapped to a table, and a small, round-faced man standing over him.

The guards took him past that room and into another cell, away from the general population. The walls here were solid, lined up and down with tile that was white at some point, but was now a dingy brown and gray. There were probably thirty men in there at least, all shivering and coughing.

The guards shoved him in, and he stumbled through, trying not to step on anyone. No one much seemed to notice anyway. Their eyes were dark and distant, like they were all looking into their own graves. Like they'd already died.

Bucky didn't want to die here.

He found his own spot to sit in, knees hugged upto his chest and his back against the wall. He watched others die, one by one. They were all too skinny and too dehydrated to fight back to health. Some of them ended up sitting in their own vomit for days at a time. Some of them would cry and beg for help. Not Bucky. Bucky was going to get through this and go up to Michigan and tell Slim's dad how his son was a hero. He owed that to Slim.

After a while, he stopped shivering. Then, he stopped sweating. Even the cough eventually became nothing byt a dry wheeze. That's when the guards came for him again. They walked him down the hall. A woman in black was carrying out a body bag from the room he'd passed before. The little, round-faced man motioned for the guards to bring the "Amerikaner", and they strapped him down to an exam table under some machinery that looked like it was straight out of a science fiction story.

"Sergeant James Barnes. My name is Dr. Zola. You are a strong boy," the small man said in surprisingly good English. He patted Bucky on the cheek with his pink hand. "How unfortunate for you."

* * *

"Good morning, James," Dr. Zola said cheerfully. Bucky didn't remember falling asleep, but he remembered an injection that had felt like fire in his veins. It must have knocked him out. "Today is the start of something very important for you. How do you feel about that?"

"James Barnes," he murmured. His throat was dry and raw. "Sergeant. 32-557-8--"

"There is no need for that. I am not trying to siphon American secrets from you, James. You are meant for something better." He motioned at someone behind Bucky, and the exam table he was strapped too suddenly bent upwards, so that he was sitting. "You've always known you were meant for something better, haven't you? I can see it on your face."

Bucky clenched his jaw. "James Barnes. Sergeant. 32-5--"

"Strong _and_ stubborn. This is good." Dr. Zola's lips twitched into a rodent smile. "I am not like the others James. There is no heart in this war. It was starved out... you Americans don't understand. You think it is some great cause, but this is the war of one Frankenstein's monster against another. The leaders, my so-called superiors, they are hollow. But _I_ am cursed to still have a heart, as you are cursed by your strength." He reached forward to push Bucky's hair back from his forehead. Bucky glared into his bright, beady eyes. "I am going to run a test on you now, and I am very sorry, but it is going to hurt."

The straps on the exam table were loosened and replaced by strong hands of two men in black uniforms--not like the ones the guards wore. Their faces weren't covered either, but they were so blank that they may as well have been. "Be gentle with him," Dr. Zola reminded them as they pushed him toward the door, back into the hall into another room. This one was tile, like the room the sick were in, but cleaner, and in the center of the room was a metal tank, and around it some sort of medical equipment. 

The tank was full of water, that the water was frozen where it touched the metal, and a woman was filling it with bags of ice.

"Endurance of the elements is very important for a soldier, wouldn't you say, James?" The assistants began to take off Bucky's clothes. "There are lesser scientists than me who try to run this very experiment, and they have been able to keep their soldiers alive for mere minutes. The one before you lasted three hours after the injections I gave him. You, I think... I would like you to double that. And, perhaps, even survive."

The men in the black uniforms lifted him up and lowered him into the water.

At first, the cold made him gasp for air, like his chest was collapsing. The female assistant was holding his head above the water with gloved hands, so he didn't fill his lungs with water. Dr. Zola was attatching some suction cups to his skin. Bucky stared up at him. He tried to reach up and grab him, to pull him into the water too, but an assistant caught his arm. 

"James, listen to me." Bucky was shaking and his breath was shallow. Dr. Zola waited until they made eye contact again before he spoke. "We're lowering your core body temperature. Soon, you will no longer be able to move. You will become disoriented, confused, very much as if you were inebriated. Soon, you will no longer feel strong enough to breathe. I want you to stay alive," he punctuated his words by poking Bucky on his chest. "If you die, one of your compatriots will take your place. Do you understand that, James?"

Bucky wanted nothing more than to crush Dr. Zola head against a wall. Instead, he nodded, and Dr. Zola smiled. "Good boy. You are a very good boy." He brushed his fingers against Bucky's cheek in an almost affectionate way that made Bucky shudder even harder. He leaned back into the female assistant's hands and closed his eyes.

He didn't know how much time passed. It seemed like hours, but it couldn't have been. "James. I need you to answer some questions."

"James... Barnes. Serg--"

"No, no. Don't start that again. They are health questions, so that I may keep you alive for the sake of your comrades."

Bucky opened his eyes slowly. "I'm not a scientist, but probably if you took me out of this tank, that'd be a good start."

Dr. Zola chuckled. "In good time. Tell me, James, can you make a fist for me?"

Bucky's lip curled, and he squeezed his right hand into a fist.

"Good. Very good." Dr. Zola took notes on a clipboard. "Now, can you wiggle your toes?"

The water sloshed slightly as Bucky did what Dr. Zola asked.

"Ten minutes. Already better than the others. I had a good feeling about this one."

The female assistant nodded. She was smiling, but her eyes were still unnervingly blank.

It continued that way, every ten minutes. Dr. Zola asked him to make a fist and wiggle his toes. Each time, his response was slower, less effective. The seventh time he asked, Bucky couldn't move at all anymore, and Dr. Zola started speaking only to the assistants. Their voices were like far away echoes at first, then nothing like voices at all, so when he did hear a voice come clear into his ears, it started him into opening his eyes again.

It was Steve, standing over the tank and grinning. "Hey, Bucky. How's it going?"

"Great," he murmured. "Best thing that ever happened to me... getting sent over here."

"I'd take your place if I could. You know I would."

"Because you're an idiot."

Steve laughed, and looked up at Dr. Zola. He was doing something with one of the machines. "You should kill him if you get the chance, don't you think? You should stay alive so you can get a chance to kill him."

Bucky tried to answer, but the edges of his vision were going black. The last thing he heard before he lost consciousness was "stay alive" but he couldn't tell if it was Steve or Dr. Zola.

* * *

He awoke gasping for breath as if he had just remembered how to breath. The female assistant was standing over him on his right, and Dr. Zola on his left. He wasn't in the tank anymore. He was back on the table with the strap. He was still naked, but there was a thick, woolen blanket over him. 

"Hello, James. I was beginning to think you left us."

Bucky sneered, his teeth were chattering and his voice was weak. "I'm not gonna let you do this to anybody else."

"Believe me, my boy. At the present, I have no interest in anybody else. This stubborn streak, it's good. Like one of the earlier ones. What was his name?"

The female assistant answered, "2531725"

Dr. Zola chuckled. "You see, Gelda here, she is not so good with names, but I remember now. Graham. One of the British soldiers. Every time he looked at me, he had that very expression on his face." He pointed at Bucky. "Pure hatred and a strong jaw. He died of... heat exposure, I believe. Or was it the gas?" He pulled down part of one of the machines that hung over Bucky. It had needles all along the sides, and when he adjusted it, its center began to glow. "But you did so well with just one injection, I'm feeling good about this mixture. You'll want to hold still."

He removed the blanket from Bucky and lowered the contraption, until the needles pierced both of Bucky's arms. The assistant attached something to his forehead. He remembered back in the cell, when he'd hear screams sometimes, and as the glowing liquid slid down through to the needles and into him, he understood now where they had come from.

* * *

They stopped feeding him entirely after a few days, stopped giving him more than a glass of water each morning. They were always running tests, Dr. Zola and the female assistant. Checking his pulse, his eyes, his throat, his strength, his coordination. They'd check his temperature too. The male assistants would turn him over on the exam table, and pull down his pants, and Dr. Zola would stick a cold, slick metal rod inside of him. Sometimes, he'd put one of his pudgy little gloved fingers in first, and Bucky would clench his jaw so hard his teeth ached.

Soon, the glass of water and the exams were the only things that kept the days from running together. 

It was the tenth glass of water since they stopped feeding him when Dr. Zola had the male assistants turn the exam table upward, so that he would be standing if he weren't strapped to it. The female assistant pulled over a contraption Bucky hadn't seen before.

"You will see, James, that simple tools often are the most useful. That is why you have been so successful here." He reached up to poke Bucky's temple. "Simple minds are the most resilient. Not much there to damage. You see the mallet here? Every so often, it will swing down and strike your forehead."

"What's that gonna prove?" Bucky spat. "That a hammer can break a guy's skull?"

Dr. Zola's lips twitched. "That's the trick of this simple-looking machine. The force isn't so much that it should crack bone. But it is enough to rattle your brain about a bit. If I'm right, then it shouldn't do permanent damage. If I'm wrong, well... Perhaps you will end up like poor Timothy. Drooling and shaking all the time." He smiled, as if it was a fond memory. "We killed him from mercy. We are not monsters, of course."

"I hope you don't mind too much if I disagree."

Dr. Zola chuckled. He flicked a switch on the machine and the mallet came down.

* * *

"Wake up, Bucky."

Bucky opened his eyes. The machine was gone, and the table was laid flat again. No, not the table. He was on a couch. The Rogers' couch back in Brooklyn. The morning sun was filtering in through the window, and Mrs. Rogers was sitting next to him, dabbing a damp cloth on his forehead.

"I was having this awful dream," he muttered.

She smiled softly. "No, Bucky. This is the dream. Remember, sweetie? I'm dead."

He swallowed thickly. His throat was dry.

"You're not dead, are you Bucky?"

"No, ma'am."

"That's my boy." There was a sound upstairs, and she looked toward it. "Steve's waiting for you. You should go see him."

Mrs. Rogers helped him to his feet, and he was steadier than he thought he'd be. He walked up the stairs, leaning on the railing a little with each step. He reached the hall, and went straight to the door of Steve's bedroom. He opened the door. Steve was curled up on the carpet, his skin was gray, a rat was gnawing on one of his fingers. He lifted up his head and smiled at Bucky. His eyes were gone from their sockets. 

"Wake up, James," he said.

Bucky eyes snapped open, his breath coming hard through his nose. He looked around the exam room frantically. The machinery, the restraints, the assistants and Dr. Zola. They were almost a relief.

"Hello there." Dr. Zola stretched Bucky's eyelids wide and shined a light into one eye, and then the other. "Dilation looks normal. Do you think you would be so kind as to give me your rank and serial number one more time?"

Bucky stared blankly up at the ceiling. "James Barnes. Sergeant. 32-557-843."

"Where were you born, Sergeant Barnes?"

"Brooklyn, New York."

"Very good. I think some scans, and then--"

The door swung open, and Dr. Zola looked up. His demeanor suddenly shifted. That constant superior smirk was gone, and his eyes were wide with fear.

A taller man with angular features strode into Bucky's view. The man sneered down briefly at him, as if he were a pile of dog shit. Dr. Zola motioned for the assistants to leave, and he began to speak to the tall man in German. Dr. Zola's voice seemed frailer, and although Bucky couldn't understand him, he could tell he was stammering. The tall man didn't say much, but what he said was impatient, and by the time he left, beads of sweat had formed on Dr. Zola's forehead.

"I get it now," Bucky said, his voice barely above a whisper. Dr. Zola looked down at him sharply, but the fear was still lingering in his eyes. "You're just a little man who's been kicked around, and now you want to kick around somebody else. You're hardly even evil; you're just pathetic."

Dr. Zola stood very still for a moment. He drew a slow breath in through his nostrils. "You are the ant this _pathetic man_ crushes under his shoe. Remember that."

The assistants came back and finished up with him. Dr. Zola said nothing. He just held his hands behind his back and watched Bucky until they were finished with him, then he left.

* * *

The male assistants came in the morning and gave him his water, then they loosened the restraints to turn him over on his belly and tighten them again. They usually ran the other tests before they took his temperature. 

The assistants left. Bucky's head was turned to the side, and Dr. Zola leaned down so he could see his face. "You said some very nasty things yesterday, didn't you, James?"

"Yeah, I cried about it all night," Bucky said flatly.

Dr. Zola. "I do appreciate your sense of humor, you know." He twisted a knob on the table until the bottom half lowered down, so Bucky's feet were dangling just over the floor and the top half of his body was still flat. "I have a sense of humor too. Do you want to hear my joke? My joke is, even if you survive this, you will not forget me. Every bath you take, you will think of how I froze you. Every meal you eat, you will think of how I starved you. Every time you are touched--" He pulled down Bucky's pants. "You will think of me then, too."

Bucky didn't say anything. Dr. Zola moved out of his view, behind him. He thought of Slim in the supply tent, how different and wonderful and frightening that had been. He thought of Slim on the cell floor. He thought about Steve back home. He thought about his dad falling down those stairs. Then, he stopped thinking all together.

* * *

It was the middle of the day. Dr. Zola had left him still face-down with his pants around his knees hours ago. He'd been staring out at nothing so long his vision had started to blur.

"Hey, Bucky?" Steve's voice was just behind him, soft and gentle, but he couldn't turn his head to look at him. He wanted to look at him. "If you need to give up, it's okay. I won't be mad. You can give up."

Bucky closed his eyes. A tear ran down and pooled in the curve of his nose. "You're not Steve."

* * *

They put him in the tank again, a few days later. He hopped to see Steve, but Steve didn't come. They stopped giving him water a few days after that, so he could only use the exams to keep track of the days. Dr. Zola didn't talk to him as much anymore, but he still had that superior smile. Bucky only ever said his name, rank, and serial number anymore. They used the hammer on him, sometime after the water was gone. Fifty strikes, Dr. Zola said. Still no long-term effects, just a bad concussion. Bucky kept hoping to see Steve. To at least hear him say that it was okay to give up again, even though he knew Steve would never say it. Maybe he was weak enough, finally, to believe Steve would say it, just this once. They're going to do some tests with nerve gas soon, Dr. Zola told him. That'd kill him, he told himself. That'd kill him for sure, and nobody could blame him for that. No one could blame him for dying then, and letting another soldier take his place.

When he heard the explosions outside, he thought he was imagining it. He did, sometimes, when he imagined he was back in a foxhole with Slim, shells falling all around them. He closed his eyes. Dr. Zola rushed in sometime later, his shoes skittering on the floor like mouse paws. Maybe they were going to use the nerve gas on him. Maybe it was almost over.

There were more explosions outside, and Bucky thought about Slim in the foxhole, sitting close to him. Zola's mice feet skittered away, and someone else came. Someone with heavier steps. One of the male assistants probably. Bucky started muttering his name, rank, serial number...

"Bucky?"

Bucky opened his eyes. The restraints were coming off. There was someone taking off the restraints. "Is that..." Nothing looked familiar about the man except his face. But when that face grinned down at him and said "It's me. It's Steve" Bucky didn't care anymore if he was real or not.


End file.
